I feel a bubbling of Human Contact. Maybe it’s because I feel like I can muster some home for change.
I’ve been missing The Academy, with their self-deprecating sense of humor and catty politics and their best expression of humanity that I can imagine. They explore because they want to learn as many ways to be a person as they can, so they freely adopt and are adopted by other sophonts (almost all hominini) across the galaxy as they find where we all spread, whenever it was that we spread out from wherever it was we first evolved.
I’ve been thinking a lot over the last 12 years about how the feet work on the most popular Academic body shape. They’ve got opposable first toes (our big toe), but that’s lousy for walking, and Academics are explorers. They don’t not walk, and unlike the bonobos who were their conceptual ancestors, their body form doesn’t lend itself to quadrupedality.
So, I’m sure you’ve been wondering, too: with no big toe, how do they walk long distances? And I’m happy to reveal the secret 12 years later: their middle toe is the one they use to push off. Their footware allows several of their toes for graceful use, but they prioritize durability on that one big toe.
I’m glad I’ve finally gotten that off my chest!
Oh, also, I’ve started Hammering from Bronze a second edition of Human Contact! We’ll see how it goes.
I suspect that I’ve started to be able to feel like I’ll be able to see my friends and do things together again after two and a half years. I hope I’m right.